Dude joined what he thought was a random Forked Tower group (It is lottery based if you can enter once more than 48 people queue up), and it turned out that it was a premade. The premade was pretty pissed and just ignored the dude, so he got left out of the groups. They all wiped on the first boss and threw shade at the dude. Basically he got to experience the average pug on Crystal and I am happy this culture is spreading to the far east, maybe that will tell the devs that making large group content, both in Chaotic and now this, too hard is retarded. The whole design for forked seems so schizophrenic; On the one hand the devs really don't want you to enter with a premade group that should be very obvious on how you enter it... on the other hand the fights are way too hard and the 3 rezz rule makes failing too punishing for pick up groups. I have no idea what the intend was here.
re: WAR
There is a reason everyone is playing it in OC, however in terms of making healer useless, nothing will beat PLD. You are literally able to carry yourself and the DPS comfortably through any duty finder fight currently existing if the healer croaks in the first seconds.
It's really a shame what they're doing with this game's mechanics. The fact that it sounds like, not even a month after release, most people are already mentally checked out of OC - content people were waiting almost a year for, which was supposed to be the mainstay of the expansion - doesn't really bode that well.
It's amazing that they've managed to hemorrhage subs down to pre-EW (by some accounts pre-SHB) levels and the glazers insist that this is some kind of 'equilibrium' the game would always settle to. I mean - for all the goodwill, for all the press, for the fact that Dawntrail sold better than any other expac, I don't see how you can read so many subs falling off as anything but a massive disapproval of the direction the game is going. It's almost like them simplifying the game isn't bringing anyone new in, and it's instead pandering to a Second Life crowd that will never lean their goongame ever anyways.
This is something I noticed, I have been logged out for several weeks and thought I'd go back in to see the new content after it had been out for a bit. However, I never really even got myself to get to the content itself as I immediately saw that of the entire FC I am in only 2 people had been online in a week. This is an FC that normally always had some people online regardless of the time of day and especially during peak hours was busy. Now however, even though this anticipated content had come out, no one could be bothered to come online. Also going through the world, even things like limsa and the gold saucer (during making it rain even), were so much more quiet than they normally are.
This is something I noticed, I have been logged out for several weeks and thought I'd go back in to see the new content after it had been out for a bit. However, I never really even got myself to get to the content itself as I immediately saw that of the entire FC I am in only 2 people had been online in a week. This is an FC that normally always had some people online regardless of the time of day and especially during peak hours was busy. Now however, even though this anticipated content had come out, no one could be bothered to come online. Also going through the world, even things like limsa and the gold saucer (during making it rain even), were so much more quiet than they normally are.
It really cannot be overstated how much XIV relies on the casual-midcore crowd, compared to its immediate competitor, WoW, which seemed to have a built-in core of sunken cost nostalgiafags and sweaty raiders. And the main draw of FFXIV has always been its above-average-for-MMO story. In essence, I have come to realise that it was always the promise of good MSQ that kept me coming back, not the tedious grind which make up 90% of the game's side-content or the stale combat that has shown no sign of a much needed revamp.
Now that Hiroi managed to fuck up post-EW MSQ, the entirety of Dawntrail MSQ, and for the foreseeable future, probably the entirety of post-DT MSQ as well, XIV has lost its one advantage over its peers. Why play XIV to grind out the same slop that gives out bigger numbers and pay for the privilege when there's an abundance of F2P MMOs or nostalgia bait like ESO and WoW that gives you the same?
however in terms of making healer useless, nothing will beat PLD. You are literally able to carry yourself and the DPS comfortably through any duty finder fight currently existing if the healer croaks in the first seconds.
Incorrect. Nascent Flash + Shake It Off handles most things better than Paladin's kit and can keep people alive more reliably than a lot of Paladin's kit in MOST cases save for super specific exceptions (usually involving Cover shenanigans).
This is something I noticed, I have been logged out for several weeks and thought I'd go back in to see the new content after it had been out for a bit. However, I never really even got myself to get to the content itself as I immediately saw that of the entire FC I am in only 2 people had been online in a week. This is an FC that normally always had some people online regardless of the time of day and especially during peak hours was busy. Now however, even though this anticipated content had come out, no one could be bothered to come online. Also going through the world, even things like limsa and the gold saucer (during making it rain even), were so much more quiet than they normally are.
IME, the more social servers/data centers are still very much alive and well, which has been my experience having to jump to Crystal fairly often to accommodate weeklies with friends (God I wish they'd stop dragging me there). Shout chat was frequently popping in the major citystates and Gold Saucer. Like I mentioned before, though, any other in-game areas are totally barren at this point. It gives the impression that, even more so than usual, people are really only logging into XIV to use it as a VRChat substitute.
Classic MMO players.
They complain incessantly about wanting a particular type of content. They get the content but to no one's surprise, realize they actually don't want what they asked for.
Queue the crowds systematically shitting and pissing themselves while they type out their perpetual complaints in the OF and rush out poorly made videos on youtube on how Yoshi and the devs dropped the ball again despite giving people what they wanted.
Classic MMO players.
They complain incessantly about wanting a particular type of content. They get the content but to no one's surprise, realize they actually don't want what they asked for.
You can't please everyone and no matter who you cater to the other side of it will bitch. None of the field ops have been perfect and had their issues from jump. Haven't gone for Forked Tower yet but otherwise I've enjoyed OC.
The jobs so far are fun but I need to still get the CE dropped ones to try them all out. Cannoneer has been simple but satisfying to volley mobs. Only one I haven't found that great yet is Monk but I haven't fully leveled it. Its low on my priority list.
I was doing an S rank in Labyrinthos and started thinking about how there doesn’t seem to be anything from Tural here. Easily explainable as to why but it makes me laugh to think that Sharlyan saw nothing worth preserving from there.
I was doing an S rank in Labyrinthos and started thinking about how there doesn’t seem to be anything from Tural here. Easily explainable as to why but it makes me laugh to think that Sharlyan saw nothing worth preserving from there.
I want to rant about Forked Tower since it's content that's simultaneously extremely fun and frustrating so forgive the wall of text. The fight itself is fun. It's just ruined by how you even enter the fight.
You can only enter Occult as 8 man parties so if you're doing a 48 man static Before we even enter the fight all 6 parties have to repeatedly enter and reenter Occult Crescent until all 6 parties magically end up in the same instance. Then after that you have to wait 30+ mins for the weather to spawn and only then can you enter the Tower.
We find out later that every mechanic in Forked Tower can be solved with 24 people minimum and the HP scales appropriately. It's easier to instance together with only 3 parties but in exchange the mechanics become harder. There's multiple mechs that need exactly 24 people in the correct positions and if you're a 24 man then if even one person is wrong then it's a wipe. More than 24 people means more leeway since the number of players required doesn't change regardless of how many players are in, only the boss HP changes.
Whenever a Tower spawns someone in our group shout chats that we're entering and to not enter. Maybe it's because we're doing this in JP and OCE, maybe it's because we're nobodies not famous streamers or maybe we're just lucky but so far people just accepted our request. Some wish us luck or spam the lightstick emote outside the portal.
Once in the tower you'll be on a platform where you can still change jobs, phantom jobs and parties so you can coordinate what's required. Because there are multiple mechanics that have required Phantom Jobs or you just die. Once you get off the starting platform you cannot change jobs and phantom jobs anymore. Inside the tower everyone can only be revived 3 times. If they die a 4th time they no can no longer do anything besides watch from the floor and warp back out and eat a level down back to 19. Only Phantom Chemist can raise, none of the regular job's raises work.
These are the phantom jobs that are required to have. Not having them or if the only users of these pjs permadied means you cannot progress past certain mechs. Some jobs you need 2 of because the party has to split in two during certain times. But it can be worth it to bring backups in case one perma dies.
2 of Phantom Thief = Needed to detect traps and open locked doors. There's also one boss where a Thief has to use Pilfer Weapon on them otherwise everyone dies
2 of Phantom Ranger = They can safely detonate the traps that the Thief detected
2 of Phantom Geomancer = There's electrified floors that the Geomancer has to use levitate on either himself or someone else so they can pull the lever on the electrified floor.
2 of Phantom Time Mage = There are mobs that need to be Dispelled otherwise you can't kill it
2 of Phantom Bard = There are mobs that need to be interrupted by a Romeo's ballad otherwise everyone dies
1 of Phantom Oracle = There's a mob that needs to be hit with Phantom Doom otherwise everyone dies. There's a mob that inflicts a raidwide doom that can be cleansed with Recuperation
1 of Phantom Berserker = The final boss has adds that whoever kills them gets a 60s hysteria debuff. Killing the add with Rage bypasses this debuff.
as many Phantom Chemists as you need = This is the only way to revive inside Forked Tower. Regular job's regular raise actions do not work.
These are the PJs that are nice to have but you're not screwed if you dont bring them
Phantom Knight - the autos and tbs on the main tanks actually really hurt so the extra mits and perma 10% mit are helpful.
Phantom Cannoneer - deals damage and perma 5% damage buff to the entire raid if they press their cannons off cooldown
Phantom Samurai - This is the job that deals the most damage thanks to Zeninage at the cost of 300k gil per use. This is the job most people optimally switch to once enough of the required roles are filled.
Phantom Berserker - Zerk has a skill that deals more damage the more damage the user takes. DRK / WAR can abuse Living Dead / Holmgang to take a gazillion damage by overlapping tbs or other specific mechs to make those 9mil+ damage screenshots. PLD / GNB are unable to do the same because their invul makes them take 0 damage. But whoever uses this needs to know the exact timings to press Rage on.
Phantom Monk - Monk's only role is to deal damage like Sam. But Sam deals more damage with Zeninage and doesn't have to deal with Phantom Kick so I rarely see it used. People just throw gil to deal more damage.
The fights in the Tower are in order
Demon Wall
Hallways (A maze where the party has to separate. It needs to be traversed with a thief leading the front to detect traps and rangers blowing up those traps)
Three Goblins
Bridges (The funnest fight in the tower if you're the Main Tank imo)
Marble Dragon
Locksward (a puzzle fight where if you successfully complete the puzzle correctly it shows you the occult crescent's map with a marker on a certain location. You will have to use Shout chat and ask people to go to that location and kill the boss that spawned there. The people outside that kill that boss get 2 sanguinite and the people in the tower get 5 sanguinite)
Magitaur final boss
I've only made it to Bridges myself and by god was it fun.
There's a left bridge and a right bridge. The party has to separate. The party has to move forward, kill adds, destroy the walls blocking the way. The party constantly has to move forward because if they're too slow the floor becomes lava
There's traps so the Thief has to constantly detect traps
Ranger has to constantly detonate traps but also there's megatraps whose explosions are too huge so the Ranger can't detonate them and the entire party just has to maneuverer around it.
There's a lever in an electrified floor that has to be pressed using Geomancer Levitate to open the path for the other party where their Geomancer then has to do the same.
There's constant mobs that need to be Time Mage Dispelled and Bard interrupted otherwise they can't be killed.
While all this is happening, 4 columns of wild charge stacks keep occurring. One tank needs to be at the front with the rest of the party at the same column behind them. That tank gets a pierce def debuff so the front tank needs to be rotating with the other tanks.
Then the final section has a boss that both sides' MT has to constantly change positions because he will need to either be pulled close to or far away from the boss on the other bridge so he doesn't explode. But also adds tether and slowly walk towards the boss so the MT has to move the boss away from those adds but also the wild charges are still happening so the MT has to plant in a column whenever that happens.
I dunno man that whole sequence just felt so fun. It's the usual 'everyone has their own responsibilities' raid design of ffxiv but there's 24-48 of you instead of 8.
There's a way to get second attempts at the bosses without leaving the tower: If you are about to wipe, a Chemist has to die and receive the Raise buff from another Chemist but not accept it. Everyone then has to die so that the arena and the boss resets. And only then does the Chemist accept the raise. The Chemist can then start raising everyone and now with the boss reset and everyone alive (and with a weakness debuff) you have a 2nd try. Although you won't be able to revive anyone who already spent all 3 of their lives so you'll have to do some party rearrangement to accommodate the missing people.
Here's an almost wipe that happened last night. The Geomancer on our side forgot to press levitate before going on the electrified floor and died. Now neither party can advance. And now the entire area is lava because we took too long. Except the lava doesn't deal too much damage so the healers somehow kept the right bridge party alive for a while. The left bridge party died at the last section of the bridge so what ended up happening is the right side Chemists essentially kept reviving the left bridge party to slowly teleport everyone to the beginning section where we were able to restart.
If everyone dies then everyone has no choice but to warp away from the tower and eat a level down to 19. Now everyone has to level back up to 20 (just takes either a few fates and 1 ce) and wait 30+ mins. This is the thing that ruins the fight. Each attempt, each wipe you have to wait this 30+ min downtime to try again. And sometimes you end up in locked instances (the instance has been up for too long so no new players can join it. You can tell this since there's a menu that lists every player in the instance and their remaining time. If there's no 179 mins left player then the instance is probably locked we have people constantly entering and rentering occult and they can never get in our instance if it's like this) and locked instances apparently can no longer spawn the tower. At least we assume that's the case. We wasted a few nights waiting more than an hour for the next weather spawn and that was the only conclusion people came up with for weather no longer spawning. Either that or it's because there's 48 people not participating in CEs. But we can't participate in CEs because there's already been times where people were unable to make it to the portal in time because they were in a CE. Jesus christ what a fantastic fight with a godawful entrance system.
Again, apologies for the wall. I dunno how much anyone in this thread cares about this content.
Coincidentally, that's as far as my static has gotten too.
I 100% agree with the opinion that this is both simultaneously some of the best yet most frustrating recent content. Forked Tower is stupidly fun with the right people but good fucking lord is the RNG to get a premade all in the same instance annoying.
The way it's summarized sounds like a slightly different rethread of the Baldesian Arsenal dungeon in Eureka. Seems like it's also more difficult rather than mostly coasting by until you get to Proto-Ozma.
I hope the people who constantly bitched about the Hildebrand relics being straightforward are happy. It's not even like this is difficult, or a challenge. It's simply tedious busywork.
Great, we can get even more infighting and retardation from the already even more batshit and entrenched Bluesky userbase
Low hanging fruit, but the comments on Reddit are funny
I finished my run of Forked. Very different content from what they usually do, so it pains me to say: Fights have no business being that hard. I know this is controversial, but hear me out:
OC is THE casual combat content. People play it to have something to grind and work towards to. People don't want to improve in that and that is a-okay imo, some just want to vibe, press their buttons, dodge some AoEs and watch some SFX fireworks go off... So why-oh-why is this not only stupidly hard to get into as a premade, but you couldn't resist and up the difficulty while giving some arbitrary resurrection limit? The fights needed to be on a pre nerf Orbonne or Delubrum Reginae (Normal) level, it should be something the entire OC instance tries to queue up for when it pops, as opposed to something that people just ignore because wiping three times to the first boss that just needs discord coordination and then having to leave sucks. With Chaotic fine, Yoshida said it is "oops savage" level so people could expect this, but FT needed the lower difficulty. You can even keep the cool aspects like the needed sub jobs that Twin Adder described so nicely. Just don't make the fights ball breaking for casuals and slap this dumb ressurection limit to it? If you absolutely must cater to the high end players at every game update, make FT drop idk... "extra bloody scrips" that they can use to queue up from outside as a entire raid to a savage version.
This is so upsetting to me because right now, without that content OC becomes fairly pointless and a grind sessions feels pretty dumb after you got the stuff for your relic atmas. Why should I level all my subjobs or work on my gear if there isn't at least something to use it in? Give casual players some flashy fights they can use their shiney toys in.
Why should I level all my subjobs or work on my gear if there isn't at least something to use it in? Give casual players some flashy fights they can use their shiney toys in.
At the very least, mastering all the phantom jobs should be a significant boon in the next stage of OC. Probably not the gear though unless it has continued upgrade paths.
The usual field ops discords are already experimenting with how carry runs will work. Since every body check mechanic only needs a minimum of 24 people to do the mechanic correctly and the dps check is non existent especially with more people with more mastery and gear. They're doing stuff like letting carried people stay dead on the floor until after the boss is killed to preserve their limited lives and giving them phantom jobs with less or more lenient responsibilities.
In a few months I'd expect the average player to be able to clear just by signing up to one of the carry to clear events these communities usually do like with BA and DRS. Shame about it being Discord exclusive content filled with fags like this but oh well.
I tried WoW for the first time in years because I really don't enjoy the loss of morale and motivation in FF14 right now.
WoW in all forms is so detached and aimless I bounced off immediately. I really like the playable races (hot elves) and classes (sick ass demon hunters and death knights) but the world and quests are so disjointed I can't get into it.
I guess I will wait for the next expansion or something, I'm still only 60% through DT...
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